The Frankish Reich

^ someone needs help on interpreting topics here.

Ahh, that’s been my crusade for several years here. Good luck!

David McCormick, PA candidate talking. Squeaky girl voice. Ouch. Oh, I’m much more the insult comic than he’ll ever be. He said that right out loud on Bill Maher.

As I warned you, I’ll be here all week. And as the Brits used to say in their special way, here applied to Tulsi: “nice legs; shame about the face.” Agreement! At last. Nice!

A whole host of losing presidential/vice presidential candidates tonight, from Ted Cruz to Marco Rubio (double loser) to Nikki Haley to Vivek (did you know JD Vance has a very Christian son named Vivek?). It's MASOA (Make America Safe Once Again) night, so no Girlfriends to Deportable Violent Criminal Aliens allowed on stage, unlike yesterday. Tonight is themed more toward South Asians, who I'v been told (hat tip: Doc) have a very low crime rate in America.

We don't just throw their ballots away; we print our own and stuff the drop-off boxes with them!

I love this debate where everyone is trying to get inside the mind of a sick loser killer.

Now that Trump has completely taken over the Republican Party we get to see his true colors. As in "I have no core beliefs at all; I just want power" Pre-2016: abortion is baby murder! Last month: let the states decide whether they think baby murder is good or bad; none of my business. Now: hey, look at our Prime Time Convention speaker! She's black and she thanks the Satanists for helping kill babies! Oh, and did I mention she's black?

Did you read that Jason Whitlock tweet? It all amounts to the Power of the Black P*ssy Over the Black Male Voter. Proudly cut and pasted by our very own Blitzy, who has his finger on the pulse (or maybe something a little lower) of Black America. Ladies and Gentlemen, Your 2024 Republican Party.

Let's just say I'm really glad on clicked on that tweet from Jason Whitlock. Spoiler Alert: it's kind of a rambling version of this. Trashification. Idiocracy. Trump.

Of course it makes a difference! That's why we give doses based on human tests. The point is that neither Trump nor RFK Jr. has any basis for suggesting that current approved doses are wrong.

WTF, changed my mind. Bring on the Full Idiocracy Convention! Dana White has taken this wimpy interim step of Face Slapping when he should've gone straight to Ow! My Balls!

I wasn't aware of Babydog. I'll be looking forward to that. https://doitforbabydog.wv.gov/ Still, the return of old style cornball Republicans will be reassuring to my aging psyche. I don't think I can handle any more normalization of porn stars and face-slapper promoters.

The perfect opportunity for Biden to show he has the cojones (ouch! the mental image that conjures) to actually fire someone. But Jill loves her so ... no.

Is that for real? "Small doses" says the expert on immunology? Like he's tested what dose is safe and effective? But in today's world, everybody's an authority. In other words, here's one for @phypon I wonder how roofers manage to do it? Maybe they should ask!

Let's say some court voids all NFL player contracts tomorrow. Everyone is an unrestricted free agent. My guess, biggest contract to lowest (this of course takes age into account): 1. Mahomes (clear first) 2. Allen (fairly close second) [big gap] 3 - 6: some relatively close ordering of Burrow, Herbert, Stroud, Jackson [another big gap] 7-8: Goff/Prescott or Prescott/Goff

Good points. We also need to remember that a government that dispenses benefits incentivizes people to stay put, even if there are no decent jobs where they live. Check out Kevin Williamson's article, which predated JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. I'm rarely shocked by reporting these days, but this one kind of shocked me: “The draw,” the monthly welfare checks that supplement dependents’ earnings in the black-market Pepsi economy, is poison. It’s a potent enough poison to catch the attention even of such people as those who write for the New York Times. Nicholas Kristof, visiting nearby Jackson, Ky., last year, was shocked by parents who were taking their children out of literacy classes because the possibility of improved academic performance would threaten $700-a-month Social Security disability benefits, which increasingly are paid out for nebulous afflictions such as loosely defined learning disorders. “This is painful for a liberal to admit,” Kristof wrote, “but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency.” https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/12/white-ghetto-kevin-d-williamson/

Abstract rankings mean nothing. I go with what economists would call revealed preferences. If Josh Allen plays out his contract, how much is he offered in a bidding war? Is it more or less than Kirk Cousins? Than Lamar Jackson?

It is a human tendency to try to find some sense - even some corrupt, evil sense, like a bargain basement coup attempt - in any tragedy. But we need to remember that very often the simplest answer is the correct one.

Yes. But how can you embarrass a man who consorts with porn stars?

There's a tough love message there that is important. Reagan decried the "welfare queens," which was primarily aimed at black America. Clinton followed with the welfare reform bill that does seem to have had a small effect on breaking the cycle of poor incentives that perpetuated the underclass. Nobody is really proposing the same thing for white rural/small town middle America, although that is an underlying theme of JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy - government handouts (huge percentages of people on disability and food stamps, for example) seem to perpetuate a culture that is work-averse. But Trump/Vance are unlikely to address that because, after all, those are the new Republican Party's core voters. Kevin Williamson at National Review did a fantastic (and kind of shocking) series of stories - later turned into a book - about the cycle of poverty in this part of white America. For example, he follows food stamps recipients who every month buy cases of soft drinks with their food stamps (Coke and Mountain Dew are SNAP eligible, thanks to the soft drink lobby) and then turn around and sell those products for cash from the local convenience stores. It happens like clockwork on the day SNAP cards are refilled. What can we do when a culture becomes so dependent on benefits that it saps all desire to work your way out of poverty? I am disappointed that politics means that JD Vance will likely not advance the kind of tough love policies that may be needed.

Me too. But I honestly don't know how to do that, and I don't think Trump and JD Vance have any idea either. I just saw Billy Joel. (Don't laugh ... he's a guilty pleasure for me. I went to Catholic High School and that "Catholic girls start much too late" song was kind of an anthem. He's in remarkably good voice for a 75 year old who tried his best to destroy his body over the years. Anyway, I digress.) He sang his "Allentown" song. "We're living here in Allentown, and they're closing all the factories down." 1982. I was in high school. 40 some years ago. We all saw the problem back then, and successive administrations have tried to stop it (at first) and then undo it (later). Nothing has really worked. - Reagan thought you should create "enterprise zones" and use the tax code to incentivize businesses to invest in these declining areas. And if that didn't work well enough, maybe we should give people money to help them move to booming regions in the Sunbelt (that part was never enacted). Success was limited at best. - Trump thought (and still thinks) we should use tariffs to make imports more expensive and domestic production cheaper. That has definitely helped big steel and big lumber, but has increased costs for manufacturing/building dependent on those now higher-priced raw materials. So it's kind of shifted the deck chairs on the Titanic. - Biden thinks that the government should be directly involved in industrial policy. The CHIPS Act promises some success in some areas where Intel, etc. got a big chunk of taxpayer money to build assembly plants. But even if that works to some extent, we really can't be doing the same thing for every industry or we'll wind up like the old Soviet Union. In other words, o.k. because chip manufacturing has national security implications (we can't be 100% dependent on vulnerable Taiwan), but not a model for future policy. Your idea of shifting power away from the Unions is economically sound. I appreciate the serious thought. And it probably would lower production costs and incentivize manufacturers to invest in places like Ohio. But those jobs would, of course, be lower paying with poorer benefits, which isn't exactly what the Allentowns of the USA are hoping for. So again, 40+ years and we're still kind of in the same place. Smaller scale manufacturing is doing just fine in the USA, but the big industries are still suffering. I've come around to thinking that nothing will bring those back since other/lower cost producers just have a comparative advantage now that we can't defeat without bankrupting the country and/or the American consumer.

Blitzy, I see you've tacked hard from the "Amber Rose was an inspirational RNC Speaker" spin to the "Yeah, but The Democrats Have Their Own Embarrassments" spin. Which proves my point, doesn't it?

For once Alex Berenson gets it right. And as far as the kid's politics: we know from his classmates that he considered himself a conservative, even to the extent that he was willing to stand alone when kids were asked to group themselves by political orientation.

She literally allows her 10 year old to be on Only Fans. Sexualizing children Isn't THAT what sends you into a tizzy?